


Having Risen, Returned

by TelepathJeneral



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Other, The Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:18:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2591450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TelepathJeneral/pseuds/TelepathJeneral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Home is a place where everyone welcomes you. Home is a place where they stay up and wait. Home is a place where they still hope to see you. Home is a place where you go at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Having Risen, Returned

Lights flashed.

Light never came from one single source-it swung and rocked and turned off and back on again, a backdrop to the more pressing concern of screams and shouts. He could hear them, the meat, taste their fear as they ran for cover or fumbled with guns. The threat was obvious. But the hunger…

 _Oh_ , the hunger.

There was nothing _but_ the hunger, these days. After the pushing and the crawling and the moving and the staggering to one’s feet, the only thought was the hunger. There were no names, anymore. No faces. Not even a concern for the screams of the fallen. Just hunger.

If he could have remembered anything, he would have been happy. He was hungry for so long, before his death, hungry for everything and anything. This kind of hunger was familiar to him. But now he had forgotten, and the hunger was still there, and he would eat and eat until the hunger was dulled, just a bit.

It was easier to move in the darkness, when the meat tried to sleep. The risen had to sleep, too, but not as much, and hiding was easier when you stayed to the forests. He didn’t stay to the forests, though. He had risen near a city, and he pursued his prey through the streets, wandering in a cluster of two or three while pawn shops and delis lay open and gutted. Sometimes the houses would prove useful-the meat could get onto second stories, fire down on the risen as they staggered closer. Not many of the townspeople had good aim. He had made it this far, hadn’t he?

He wasn’t sure why he kept walking. Well, the “why” was unimportant. The meat had already fled the city center, barricaded too well in their fancy apartments, and so he had wandered further out of town. The risen were less numerous here, though still present. The meat was less cautious. Doors were still left unbarred.

He crept closer to the house, the light on the porch still working. Strange, that. That someone would keep their porch light on like that. That someone would still leave a beacon. Although the risen didn’t like or dislike light, the simple fact that the porch light didn’t go off made him pause. Its steady shine was a clue to something, somehow. Something he couldn’t remember.

_We’ll leave the light on for him. In case he finds his way back._

_Don’t be stupid, Maria. He’s gone, long gone-_

_You can’t say that! Simon’s your son. He’ll know his way home. And if it’s late, he’ll need to find our house-his house. To come back to us._

He staggered closer to the light. It seemed warm, somehow. Things hadn’t been warm since he’d died. And now this place was warm, and his feet were managing to use the steps, and he could stand before the door and see how tall he was. He’d grown.

How could he know this?

_Look, Simon! Another inch! You’ll be taller than your dad, soon enough. Growing like a weed._

He couldn’t remember.

He reached forward to place a hand against the door. A groan gurgled from his broken lips, speech lost in the hindbrain that was still active, and he tried to push.

He slapped his hand against the wall, groans growing more urgent, and despite everything, a noise came from inside. Someone was opening the door.

He had grown so much, and now he was looking down on her, this little woman with perfect hair and a smell like a dusty radiator. She had opened the door, despite the shouts from inside the house, and there she stood. She smiled up at him, not caring about the blood on his shirt or the crusted blackness around his lips. She smiled.

“I knew you’d come home, Simon-“

She almost reached up to him, her eyes glistening with tears, and he could feel the hunger growing more insistent. She was meat. And he was hungry.

A roar came from somewhere around them, glass shattering deeper inside the house. He knew he had company-other risen were here, and he was not alone. Lunging forward, he grabbed at the woman, dragging her with him to escape the confines of the house. She screamed, but he ignored it, letting her struggles carry them further outside before he began to eat.

Later on, he would realize that he would forget this, too. He would remember nothing. And the pain of memory returning would be enough to drive him mad.


End file.
